Colorful Night with Red Trees Painting

I was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. I moved to Orlando, Florida when I was 12 years old. I obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design from the Pratt Institute of Art in NYC. The love and passion for art ran in my family for generations. My grandfather was a well-known architect in Korea. My grandmother was also highly artistic. My father is a renowned illustrator and painter. My mother, brother and cousins are fine artists, graphic designers, architects and writers. Thus I was born and raised around art. My parents saw that I had artistic talent and drive from a young age. During high school, I attended art portfolio classes in New York City every summer. This experience gave me a chance to attend the prestigious Pratt Institute of Art, where I was able to develop my own style and expand my artistic horizons. My artistic process entails designing functional objects while expressing dominant and sub-dominant relationships in any perspective. The movement and depth are captured in a still moment of clarity, forming a harmonic connection between the two. From a line sketch, I focus on the moving lines to emphasize flow. After painting the sky and building up the stories from the background (sub-dominant), I am able to create a visual fantasy world. I choose one dominant color and mix it with others to suggest that there are many layers, stories and themes inside of one painting. My paintings are based on surreal cityscapes. Therefore, I research various cities and buildings around the world. A great deal of my inspiration comes from the exploration of European cities, specifically neighborhoods which incorporate Medieval architecture with modern city living.